Every year when I pay my taxes, I always hope that government money will be used by predatory banks to enrich their executives at my expense! And it looks like my hopes finally came true:

Citigroup Inc., one of the biggest recipients of government bailout money, gave employees $5.33 billion in bonuses for 2008, New York’s attorney general said Thursday in a report detailing the payouts by nine big banks.

The report from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office focused on 2008 bonuses paid to the initial nine banks that received loans under the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program last fall. Cuomo has joined other government officials in criticizing the banks for paying out big bonuses while accepting taxpayer money.

Citigroup, which is now one-third owned by the government as a result of the bailout, gave 738 of its employees bonuses of at least $1 million, even after it lost $18.7 billion during the year, Cuomo’s office said. [via AP]

Think that’s bad? Check out the full statistics below of banks that received TARP bailout funds and the bonuses they handed out:

All totaled, over $34 billion in bonuses were given out by banks during the financial crisis, or even though the banks lost over $80 billion and took over $175 billion in federal bailout funds via the TARP program. Bonuses thus constitute 20% of the bailout money received and almost half of the banks loses during this period.

Yes, you read that correctly: Banks lost over 80 billion dollars, took over 175 billion dollars in taxpayer bailouts, and yet still handed out 34 billion dollars in corporate bonuses. And to add salt in the wounds, Visa profits jumped 73% the last quarter! Who needs credit card reform or bank regulations anyway?

From jmooneyham.com, this image represents how much cash separates the top 1% from the bottom 99% of the population in the United States. It gets worse:

During eight years of the Bush administration, the 400 richest Americans, who now own more than the bottom 150 million Americans, increased their net worth by $700 billion. In 2005, the top 1 percent claimed 22 percent of the national income, while the top 10 percent took half of the total income, the largest share since 1928….

The highest incomes come from executive pay at top corporations. In 2007, the ratio of CEO pay to the average paycheck was 344 to 1, lower than the record 525 to 1 ratio set in 2001, but substantial. [via Common Dreams]

[tags]economic inequality in the united states, income inequality in the united states, top 1%, top 10%, bottom 99%, bottom 90%, graphs on income inequality, graphs on inequality, share of american income, numbers, statistics, america, united states of america, poverty, poor, rich[/tags]

The Obama administration said in court papers Friday that it intends to continue to detain an Afghan prisoner being held at Guantanamo Bay despite the fact that the only known evidence against him in a habaeas corpus lawsuit he filed against the government was obtained through torture.

Justice Department attorneys told a federal court judge last week it wasn’t going to rely upon that evidence to justify his indefinite imprisonment…